Standout Authors - Writing That Heals: Why Horror is the Most Honest Genre with Lee Murray
What if the genre you dismissed as too dark was actually the most honest thing you could read?
Lee Murray has spent twenty years writing horror from the edge of the world. She’s won five Bram Stoker Awards, a New Zealand Prime Minister Award for Literary Achievement, and a medal from the King.
And she’ll be the first to tell you she’s barely making grocery money. That gap between recognition and reward is just one of the things Lee is refreshingly honest about in this conversation.
She also talks about what it really means to put yourself in a story, why horror is one of the most grown-up genres out there, and how building community from the bottom of the world changed everything for her.
Highlights
“Write what you know” means something deeper than you think.
Most writers hear that phrase and think about surface-level experience. When she was starting out, Lee did too.
She wrote about marathon running because she had run 25 of them. She knew the material. But something was still missing.
It wasn’t until she started writing from her identity as an Asian woman in a Western country, about her experience with depression and anxiety, and the tension between cultures she carries every day, that her writing found its real power.
“What I think they mean when they say put yourself in this story is you need to write the story that only you can write. You need to write the things that resonate for you, that make you frightened, that make you feel something. You need to put those things into the story.”
That kind of vulnerability is harder than craft. And it takes longer to find. But when you do, readers feel it.
Horror is the most grown-up genre in the room.
There is a particular kind of prejudice that follows horror writers around.
People assume it’s B-grade, gratuitous, not serious literature.
Lee pushes back on that because horror is where we go to face the things we can’t say out loud: losing control, shame, the unknown. All the parts of the human experience that we aren’t supposed to talk about.
“Fear is the most primal feeling. What frightens us, what worries us, what gives us the chills — exploring that is a universal thing because we all are afraid of something. And it drives our behavior.”
Monsters, she explains, are almost always metaphors. For trauma. For oppression. For the generational weight we carry without even realizing it. Horror allows us to hold those things up and examine them.
Everyone has their own process.
Lee describes herself as a slow writer. She does not do vomit drafts. She can’t turn off her editor brain long enough to just get words on the page.
For a long time, that felt like a flaw but now she sees it differently.
“I tend to kind of have an idea, kind of know where it’s going, and then I kind of write it... I’ll write a sentence and I’ll go back and revise the sentence and then I’ll write the next sentence. That makes me a slow writer. But at the end of the day, I tend to find that I don’t change too much.”
She has no stories on the backburner. Nothing is abandoned. Everything she has written has found its place.
Find the gap that only you can fill.
Lee did not set out to create a niche. She just started writing the stories she wanted to read and could not find anywhere else: horror thrillers set in the New Zealand bush, feminist Asian horror, stories about mental illness.
“Sometimes it’s a good idea to look for the gap. Where is the gap that you can fill that only you can tell that story? Your story.”
And once she found that space, she did something most people won’t do — she invited others in. She believes you don’t need to protect your niche because there’s more than enough room for everyone.
When you bring more writers into the space you helped create, the whole genre grows.
Survive and thrive through community.
Publishing from New Zealand is difficult because the industry mostly looks the other way. Traditional publishers are largely absent and literary agents are almost nonexistent. Shipping a $12 book to New Zealand costs $35.
And yet Lee has built something that spans the globe and she did it by showing up.
Through anthologies that built readerships around shared ideas. Through mentorship that she gives and receives. And through joining every writing group she believes in.
“If you want something to happen, you need to step up and do it.”
That lesson came from her parents, who ran school committees and sports clubs because they wanted to see those things exist. Lee brought the same energy to horror. And horror gave her a tribe in return.
Success means something different for everyone.
Lee is not a millionaire bestseller, but she also doesn’t aim to be one.
Instead she has a community she loves, a genre she is proud of, and a body of work that has earned some of the highest honors in the field.
“Once you’ve defined what is successful to you, what would successful look like, then you can step forward and say, how am I going to get there?”
That question is worth asking because the answer changes everything. The path to a bestselling series looks nothing like the path to a life built around craft, community, and meaning. There is no “right” path, only the path you choose to take.
Closing Reflection
Lee Murray reminds us that horror is not a guilty pleasure. It is literature doing serious work in a world that needs it.
Her journey shows what happens when a writer stops acting the part and starts putting the real, complicated, vulnerable parts of themselves on the page.
If you are an author who writes stories that feel too personal, too niche, or too strange for the mainstream, we want to hear from you.
Leave a comment and tell us about your work. You deserve the spotlight too.
Transcript
So for me, what's the definition of success is that, you know, I found a community that I love and I found a genre that I love to write in and maybe a little readership.
Speaker A:And I'm not wealthy, so I, you know, I have.
Speaker A:I'm not making millions.
Speaker A:I'm barely making grocery money, you know, so, you know, am I successful?
Speaker A:A lot of people say hell no, but for me, that's, that's working for me.
Speaker A:So, you know, I mean, what's successful?
Speaker A:I mean, I think that's, I think that's the thing is once you've defined what is successful to you, what would successful look like?
Speaker A:Then you can step forward and say, how am I going to get there?
Speaker A:And if successful means building a best selling community, then that means you need to take a different path from me, because that's not me.
Speaker A:But I think that that's perhaps the thing to think about each year as you go into, you know, start your writing year is what do I want from this?
Speaker A:You know, where do I want to go?
Speaker B:Welcome to Standout Authors Unbound, a space for writers who refuse to disappear.
Speaker B:This is where you can share your work without shrinking, softening, or polishing yourself into something safer.
Speaker B:I'm your host, Kevin Chung, and I created this series for authors writing from lived experience, from the margins, and from places the system often overlooks.
Speaker B:They'll talk about voice, visibility, and building a writing life that honors who you are, not just what sells.
Speaker B:Let's get into it.
Speaker B:Welcome to another episode of Standout Authors Unbound.
Speaker B:Today I have on Lee Murray.
Speaker B:Lee, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, the work that you do and how you got into it?
Speaker A:Thank you for having me, Kevin.
Speaker A:It's lovely to be here and to be talking to your substack members.
Speaker A:I'm primarily a writer of horror.
Speaker A:I'm also an editor, an essayist, a poet and a screenwriter.
Speaker A:I'm a five time Bram Stoker award winner, a Shirley Jackson award winner, and a number of other awards.
Speaker A:New Zealand Prime Minister Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction.
Speaker A:And I'm an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, which means I have a medal from the king, from the Commonwealth.
Speaker A:So, yeah, but I mostly write in horror, so that's my primary sort of genre.
Speaker A:But I'm a bit of a.
Speaker A:What's the word?
Speaker A:A neurospicy chipmunk.
Speaker A:And I tend.
Speaker A:I'm one of those people that have, you know, I see one acorn and, you know, I put it in my cheeks and then I see Another acorn.
Speaker A:I try and put that in my cheek as well.
Speaker A:And so I tend to have lots of tabs open.
Speaker A:And my current work actually is not horror particularly.
Speaker A:It's a sort of feminist project, a collaborative poetry project that's just coming up.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, so.
Speaker A:But mostly my work is sort of in horror.
Speaker A:Some of my threads, the things I like to pursue, include mental illness and horror and how we might portray mental illness in a way that's authentic and sensitive without sanitizing any of that lovely gooey horror.
Speaker A:And I also very keen on sort of women's narratives, feminist narratives, particularly Asian horror narratives and that community.
Speaker A:So those are kind of my, I guess, my sort of key threads of where my practice is going.
Speaker A:But like I say, I've got a lot of tabs open.
Speaker A:So, you know, we all, I think.
Speaker B:Most creative people do.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I kind of.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm always sort of looking for the new challenge.
Speaker A:And I kind of think that's partly the problem.
Speaker A:I've sort of, you know, probably my career would have been much more successful or at least more lucrative if I just stuck with one thing.
Speaker A:So people knew what I stood for.
Speaker A:But, yeah, I don't seem to be able to do that.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think it's.
Speaker B:It's hard to stick to one thing if you have so many ideas and passions.
Speaker B:And I think the best way to handle it is to work on things in seasons or spurts.
Speaker B:So that way you, you can keep the ideas going, but you don't necessarily need to go 100% into anything at one time.
Speaker B:Allows you to kind of spread your, your desires all over the place.
Speaker A:Well, I guess it keeps you fresh, doesn't it?
Speaker A:You know, so it sort of keeps you.
Speaker A:It's a sort of.
Speaker A:I mean, I think it's hard to be hyper focused on a project, you know, you know, if you keep switching.
Speaker A:So, you know.
Speaker A:But I think if you spend a day on one thing and then move to something else, that just gives you the refresh and the reset your mind.
Speaker A:Sometimes that can be very helpful, particularly if you've got to a place where you're stuck or, you know, you need to think through what the next plot event would be or how you might structure this next part or any of that, or rewrite a rewrite of something, then I think, you know, moving to something else can give you that, your brain, the time to process that other aspect until you're ready to come back and start.
Speaker A:So I think sometimes that's quite helpful to have other projects open because it also can not just a reset, but also sort of send your mind into another way of thinking or another.
Speaker A:Oh, that, that I did this here, maybe that might work over here.
Speaker A:So, yeah, yeah, that's a good.
Speaker A:At least it's an argument for we've got too much going on, I suppose.
Speaker B:Well, there's been a lot of research into like the creative space.
Speaker B:And one of the keys is to take breaks.
Speaker B:And that can mean different things to different people.
Speaker B:Maybe it means going for a walk.
Speaker B:Like, that's the reason why we have these revelations in the shower.
Speaker B:It's because we've given our time for our brain to kind of sort through a bunch of stuff in the background while we're concentrating on other things or taking a break entirely from creating or doing things.
Speaker B:So a lot of times we just need the time to process all the stuff because if we concentrate too hard on it, that's how we.
Speaker B:We lose focus.
Speaker B:So we need to kind of shift gears.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I really envy those people who, you know, think up great plots while they're asleep and get up and then scribble it down and ta da, there's this cool plot just already fully formed.
Speaker A:Although I have seen a couple of people.
Speaker A:I think Scott Edelman's one of those.
Speaker A:I think he posted a picture of a picture of a note that he'd written to himself in the night and he was going to.
Speaker A:Can anyone understand this?
Speaker A:Can anyone read this?
Speaker A:I know I had a great idea, but I can't read my notes.
Speaker A:And I think, yeah, I think I do envy those people that their brain is processing the whole thing and then wake up and it's done, you know, like.
Speaker A:No, that doesn't really happen to me.
Speaker A:Me, unfortunately, I have to do the hard.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's the hard work.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, yeah, different people's brains work in different ways.
Speaker B:So as long as you know what it is that works for you, it's the thing that you should do.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because if you've tried it and tried it and it doesn't work, there's no reason to keep on doing the thing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's exactly why everyone's process is different.
Speaker A:I tend to kind of put down.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm a very slow writer and I tend not to do what some writers call a vomit draft to sort of get their ideas down on the page.
Speaker A:I don't tend to do that because then that sort of takes like six revisions to get it to be something.
Speaker A:I tend to kind of have an idea, kind of know where it's Going.
Speaker A:And then I.
Speaker A:Then I kind of write it.
Speaker A:And because I'm a bit of an editor as well, and I can't seem to turn my editor brain off.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So I'll write a sentence and I'll go back and revise the sentence, and then I'll write the next sentence, and then I'll go back and think, oh, no, that doesn't work with the first sentence.
Speaker A:And so it's quite.
Speaker A:That makes me a slow writer.
Speaker A:But at the end of the day, I do always send my work out to a critique group.
Speaker A:But at the end of the day, I tend to find that I don't change too much.
Speaker A:I don't have to change big tracks of a story.
Speaker A:Usually I haven't gotten very many stories that I've just abandoned because I couldn't find the way it would end or, in fact, I don't think I've got anything like that in my.
Speaker A:In my trunk.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So my process is sort of very.
Speaker A:A bit different from other people who, you know, you hear that they tend to sort of put something on the page and then work with the thing on the page.
Speaker A:I don't tend to do that, which is.
Speaker A:And also don't have any.
Speaker A:I don't think I've got any trunk stories.
Speaker A:You know how people say, oh, I've got the.
Speaker A:I've got 20 stories.
Speaker A:You know, I've got this story.
Speaker A:And that's.
Speaker A:I'm going.
Speaker A:Any of those.
Speaker A:Because I am such a slow writer.
Speaker A:I don't have anything in the trunk, anything that's written that's not been commissioned or I got nothing.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And I think that is partly because I am just such a slow writer.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And that process.
Speaker A:But then it works for me.
Speaker A:And so I just.
Speaker A:Yeah, you know, I think generally I'm happy with the story that comes out the other end.
Speaker A:And particularly in recent years, you know, when I first.
Speaker A:When I sort of first started writing, because I've been writing full time about 20 years now, when I first started writing, I was never quite sure that my stories were hitting the mark.
Speaker A:And now I feel a little more confident in my ability to write a story, a structure, you know, the style of prose that will get it across the line.
Speaker A:And I guess part of that, too, is being an editor and working with lots of people and curating other people's work and knowing what works and having read thousands and thousands of submissions for various story competitions and, you know, award judging and stipends and various other things in the community work that I do kind of that's helpful because you understand what, you kind of analyze what makes a story work and why this particular structure works with this story, with this particular author.
Speaker A:It gives you that big breadth of sort of analysis.
Speaker A:If you like that sort of put it in the machine and come out the other side.
Speaker A:And so I'm a bit lucky there that I've had so much input from other writers in that way.
Speaker A:You know, like they don't know they're helping me, but by letting me, you know, give me the privilege of working with them, I can, you know, you have that sort of fresh view from at other people's work and then you can apply it, some of those, those techniques to your own work.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think it's important to bring in anything that we do into the work because there are elements of not even writing, say, say you were an actor or something.
Speaker B:You can bring in elements of your job outside, maybe from cooking or maybe from, you know, reading or something that all of these different things that we use in our day to day life are used as inspiration.
Speaker B:And if we just hold ourselves into like, oh, I can only learn to write by writing.
Speaker B:I don't know if that's productive or not.
Speaker A:You know, all by reading, I guess, but writing and by reading, I think that's really interesting because you know, you bring some other things of yourself into the story.
Speaker A:And someone told me that very early on in writing you should write what you know.
Speaker A:And I took that as oh, I can only I should write about the things that I understand and know.
Speaker A:So at the time I was a runner and I wrote this tricklet thing.
Speaker A:One of my first books was a practice book.
Speaker A:I wrote a chicklet book about running because I used to run marathons.
Speaker A:And I thought, oh, this will be fun.
Speaker A:So I wrote this really light hearted, sort of breezy kind of book about running and romance and stuff.
Speaker A:And it was sort of at the boom of reality tv so I thought, oh, that would be interesting.
Speaker A:So I kind of wrote this thing and look, I don't regret writing it at all because I learned so much about the craft of writing.
Speaker A:But I kind of had gone on this idea that you should write what you know.
Speaker A:And I knew about marathon running.
Speaker A:I'd written, I'd ran 25 of them and a few ultras and I'd run with other women at the time.
Speaker A:And I thought, oh yeah, I do know something about this.
Speaker A:But what I think they mean when they say put yourself in this story is you need to write the story that only you can Write.
Speaker A:You need to write the things that resonate for you, that make you frightened, that make you feel something.
Speaker A:You need to put those things in to the story.
Speaker A:And I wasn't doing that early on.
Speaker A:I mean, crafting wise, I probably was doing okay, but I didn't understand that I needed to put things that I was passionate about in my stories.
Speaker A:So, you know, put those aspects of myself into the story, not just the superficial things about, you know, of myself into the story.
Speaker A:There's no reason why you can't put a recipe in a cook, you know, the thing that you love to eat, the best thing, of course you can.
Speaker A:You can have your character like that.
Speaker A:But I was thinking more about the things like, you know, you know, I am an Asian woman who lives in a western country.
Speaker A:I had a, you know, Western dad and an Asian and a Chinese mum.
Speaker A:And I'm living in, you know, New Zealand, which has, you know, this wonderful Maori, Pacifica worldview as well as these colonizing influences.
Speaker A:That's a big stretch.
Speaker A:You know, I came up through science and academia and yet, you know, Asian culture is very, very infused with the supernatural, with, you know, superstition, with, with all of these things which are real.
Speaker A:They're not, you know, like you could say, well, there are no ghosts, but those ghosts still influence our behavior.
Speaker A:Those curses, those, those traditions still influence our behavior.
Speaker A:So, you know, in that sort of place of conflict, you know, I think the most interesting stories are written.
Speaker A:And so of course now I'm very interested in that experience.
Speaker A:And when I learned that other women, you know, other Asian women in the diaspora have these experiences, well, that was just so eye opening and exciting.
Speaker A:And their experiences were in some ways the same and some ways so different.
Speaker A:And so just what a wonderful, you know, you know, enriching process.
Speaker A:And then of course, you know, I'm also, you know, I struggle with sort of depression and anxiety and some other issues in terms of my mental health.
Speaker A:And you know, and so, you know, I kind of denied that.
Speaker A:Again, Asian thing, you know, we don't sort of admit to mental illness.
Speaker A:It's sort of what something that you just sweep under the carpet.
Speaker A:It's just not, it's very taboo.
Speaker A:And, and I actually, and also on my, the western side of my family, that also happened.
Speaker A:My dad had an autistic sister, you know, and it was very, you know, there's a lot of shame attached and stigma attached.
Speaker A:And they shouldn't be, you know, there shouldn't be, you know, people are sympathetic if you, you know, you, you you twist your ankle and you've got your moon book.
Speaker A:Oh, poor you.
Speaker A:But if you're struggling with your mental health, that's a different thing.
Speaker A:You know, there's a lot of uncertainty and unknown.
Speaker A:And again, what a great thing to be in horror and have an opportunity to talk about the uncertainty, the unknown, the loss of control, you know, so suddenly that's how I'm putting myself in the story, Kevin.
Speaker A:It's not the.
Speaker A:Not the fact that I'm, you know, that I.
Speaker A:That I, you know, that I like this particular recipe or I know how to run a marathon.
Speaker A:I'm trying to put those deeper, deeper things, those places where I'm vulnerable, the places where, you know, I struggle with the sort of.
Speaker A:The tension between, you know, being unbelonging, for example, or being a bit odd and not, you know, responding in the neurotypical way to, you know, behaving in a different way, or sometimes having the black dog sort of hanging over me.
Speaker A:How do I get out of bed?
Speaker A:Those kinds of things are, I think, the points of connection with other people and with readers.
Speaker A:And so those.
Speaker A:When we say write what you know, I think that's what we mean.
Speaker A:And I was slow to learn that.
Speaker A:Really slow to learn that.
Speaker A:So, yeah, you're absolutely right.
Speaker A:We need to put ourselves in the story.
Speaker A:And I think that we can put ourselves in the story.
Speaker A:I don't mean it superficially, but we can put ourselves in a story in different ways, in different depths, in different contexts, I suppose.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I don't think there's anyone meaning to put yourself in the story.
Speaker B:It's like you as a person have so much that you've been through, but not only that, but the stuff that you've consumed as well.
Speaker B:You know, the experiences of people, you know, like things that you've read in the news.
Speaker B:All of this stuff is, like, just rummaging up in our brains, like doing something you'll remember some things, like, permanently, even though it was, like, not meaningful at all.
Speaker B:So how do we take all of these different things and use them in a way that makes it relatable to the reader?
Speaker B:And I think that's like, the most important thing as writers being a story.
Speaker B:How do we connect with the reader and make them feel what these characters are feeling, the situations they're in and all those things?
Speaker A:Yes, those are the things.
Speaker A:Universal points of, you know, vulnerability.
Speaker A:And I think that's exactly right.
Speaker A:And of course, you've got to do your research.
Speaker A:You know, you can't just you.
Speaker A:What you need your story to be plausible in order for people, you know, to suspend disabilities and sort of be, be immersed in that world.
Speaker A:And so you need to do your research.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:You need to read widely.
Speaker A:I think something that a lot of writers, particularly early on kind of miss is that, you know, how can you be a scholar of your craft if you don't read, you know, you need to read so widely and understand why people enjoyed this work or.
Speaker A:And of course this is sort of, there's a bit of attention, isn't there too?
Speaker A:Because writing and literature is two things.
Speaker A:It can be an art and it also is a product.
Speaker A:And you know, the industry is set up in order to make money, you know, so it isn't just a case of we need to connect with the reader in order to, to, you know, understand the human condition and find that point of connection, that universal language of, you know, oh yes, I experienced this too and wow, someone else has seen me.
Speaker A:But also, you know, publishers want to make money from books.
Speaker A:So there is this tension between what we want to put out there and maybe what is marketable and salable.
Speaker A:So that is a. I guess it's.
Speaker A:Although I guess there is a market for almost everything, but whether it's a big market is another story.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, so it is a tricky, it is a tricky tension to sort of.
Speaker A:I haven't quite, I haven't quite mastered that because I was definitely not a best seller in any, you know, in any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker A:And you know, I have a USA Today best selling sort of ticket.
Speaker A:But, you know, that's a one week thing.
Speaker A:You know, you, what you want is that long tail of sales that will just keep, you know, putting food on the table and, and the lights on.
Speaker A:And that's a tricky thing.
Speaker A:And especially in this very rapid changing sort of publishing industry, the trends just, everything is just moving so quickly and we now have AI to contend with and where do we stand on that and where are the guardrails?
Speaker A:And there's just so much for writers to get their heads around.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's, it's just moving so, so, so fast.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I think the balance between making something creatively for yourself and for consumption, there's such a difficult balancing act between those two things because on one hand you want to have full control over what you're saying and the messages and all that stuff and you want to do it in the way that you want to do it.
Speaker B:But does that lead to people wanting to read it?
Speaker B:And if you're wanting to continue the Craft of doing that thing, like as a job, if that's your goal, then you need to be able to.
Speaker B:To be able to sell it as well as write it.
Speaker B:Because being a good writer is like the minimum bar for any good, like authority.
Speaker B:Anyone can be a good writer.
Speaker B:But how are you able to really get that message out there in a way that reaches the people who want to read it?
Speaker A:Yeah, it is tricky, isn't it?
Speaker A:Because I think publishing, to be fair, you know, publishing is looking for the next best thing, but they also want to.
Speaker A:But it's hard to recognize that, you know, and they have hundreds and hundreds of books across their desk and a commissioning editor.
Speaker A:And I think they're more likely to pick something than know as a sure thing, you know, another Lee Child thriller or something than they are something that's unusual and different and maybe a little bit niche or that's a risk.
Speaker A:So that's a tricky, tricky one.
Speaker A:You know, do you want to just appeal to the masses or do you want to appeal to a small group or, you know, do you want.
Speaker A:How do you break into doing something a little different?
Speaker A:And that's where I think the tension.
Speaker A:The tension is, you know.
Speaker A:But I think for me, I've been a little bit lucky.
Speaker A:Like, I started with sort of, well, okay, there was the chicklet thing, but after that and I also did some middle grade and YA and what have you.
Speaker A:But I kind of sort of found a place in horror with sort of horror thrillers, adventure horror thrillers set in the New Zealand bush.
Speaker A:And there wasn't any of that, you know, and people like to be transported to something exotic and, you know, new worlds.
Speaker A:And I kind of cheated a little because the world is just the world I live in.
Speaker A:New Zealand is already a fantastic place to set a story.
Speaker A:It's atmospheric, you know, we have this beautiful landscape.
Speaker A:We have this wonderful Maori and Pacifica heritage and mythology and just beautiful stories, local stories.
Speaker A:And we have this New Zealand gothic, you know, this very uncanny, weird sort of the.
Speaker A:The veil is really close here.
Speaker A:You know, we sort of walk with ghosts all the time in this country.
Speaker A:And then we're very multicultural as well.
Speaker A:You know, a lot of immigrants to New Zealand.
Speaker A:And so we have this, you know, this wonderful sort of miasma of different cultures and ideas and lifestyles all in this one very place.
Speaker A:And then for horror, you know, you only have to go 2km and you're on this dirt road somewhere in New Zealand and it's very lonely.
Speaker A:And you.
Speaker A:If you break down there, well, who knows what might happen to you.
Speaker A:So there's.
Speaker A:The scope is so wonderful.
Speaker A:And so, you know, I was a little bit lucky in that I found some.
Speaker A:I found some niches, some places where other people weren't working yet and was able to start some.
Speaker A:Some community building.
Speaker A:If you like.
Speaker A:Like, you know, if you bring it, they will come.
Speaker A:If you write it, they will come.
Speaker A:If you.
Speaker A:If you, you know, hey, where's.
Speaker A:Where's the.
Speaker A:Where's the.
Speaker A:Women in horror?
Speaker A:Asian women in horror.
Speaker A:And now there's.
Speaker A:Now I feel very excited that there's this wonderful community of women and Asian women in horror that sort of give me courage to sort of move forward and do more in this space.
Speaker A:So, yes, sometimes there's, you know, sometimes it's a good idea to look for the gap.
Speaker A:Where is the gap that you can fill that only you can tell it.
Speaker A:Story, your story, you know, I can't tell some other woman's.
Speaker A:But you know, that your experience, the things that sort of resonate for you will surely resonate for someone else.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I think sometimes it's easiest, like we were discussing earlier, to take the things that, you know, like, you know, New Zealand.
Speaker B:So let's set in New Zealand and no one's doing it.
Speaker B:This is a new category I'm essentially creating because I did not see it myself.
Speaker B:I think that's one of the things that has often set apart a lot of the authors I talk to is that they were jumping into a space that they didn't find.
Speaker B:And they're like, okay, I'm gonna be in this because I want to see it and I should be the one to do it, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think the other thing that's really interesting about that, Kevin, is that you don't need to protect that space.
Speaker A:You don't go, that's my niche.
Speaker A:I'm just going to hold on to it.
Speaker A:You bring more people in, there's always more space.
Speaker A:You know, like, I think pay it forward, you know, lift other voices.
Speaker A:There's always more space.
Speaker A:There's always someone.
Speaker A:There's a. I guess there's an audience, you know, there'll be someone who's looking for more of that or, you know, to find their.
Speaker A:Themselves represented in story.
Speaker A:And so, you know, I don't think we need to be, you know, you can start something, but there'll be more welcome the other writers in, you know, I can't write enough to keep those readers, you know, entertained.
Speaker A:And so there's more space.
Speaker A:I don't know about the AI story.
Speaker A:You know, do we need AI writing that stuff?
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:Personally, I think no.
Speaker A:People can't be bothered to write a book, then I can't be bothered to read it.
Speaker A:But, you know, and actually, that's kind of stolen work, so I feel very strongly about that.
Speaker A:But generally, I think if.
Speaker A:If we're talking about traditional writing and human writing, then I think welcome those other people into that space because, you know, it feeds off each.
Speaker A:You know, you feed off each other.
Speaker A:There's this great book, what a great idea.
Speaker A:And then the bounce to your own work.
Speaker A:I think that's, you know, you can be inspired, like you say, from all of these other inputs that you're consuming.
Speaker A:They just give you inspiration.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker B:I think the more people in the space, the better it is for you because like you said, you cannot write enough to fill the need.
Speaker B:You can if, especially if you're a slow writer, like you said you are.
Speaker B:How.
Speaker B:How are you supposed to keep up with the demand that you've created?
Speaker B:So the more people that join you in this, I think that the larger that community grows and the more access and availability you have to more readers, because as you're creating this audience and it builds up, you might find that other person and be like, who else is writing these stories?
Speaker B:And then they can point to you and back and forth so that you're all joined together.
Speaker A:Yeah, look at my colleague.
Speaker A:If you like this, you'll love this.
Speaker A:You know, look at my colleague over here.
Speaker A:She's writing this, you know, like, I loved this work.
Speaker A:Check her out.
Speaker A:You know, and that.
Speaker A:It's just, it's.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:It's the community building, I just think.
Speaker A:And also, there's nothing.
Speaker A:There's nothing more, I don't know, uplifting than being part of a community and feeling like you belong and, you know, there's a space for you.
Speaker A:I think that's.
Speaker A:And I think that's true of horror because, you know, of course, all genres have their shenanigans.
Speaker A:There's, you know, little scandals, you know, little fires being put out all over the place because people are people.
Speaker A:But in general, I think horror is very welcoming.
Speaker A:It's a subversive, transgressive, progressive genre.
Speaker A:You know, it's a genre built on, you know, the backs of women, really, because women had, you know, had a very strong influence, certainly in the sort of Western canon of horror.
Speaker A:And I think, you know, I just think it's a place that's very welcoming and if you want to be a bit weird, which I am.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it's so interesting that the content, you would think since it's horror, all this terrible stuff is happening, this dread and all of these like things that people do not want to experience.
Speaker B:It's such a beautiful space for inclusion because you would think, oh, this is just murdering people.
Speaker B:But there's like a reason that these stories are being told.
Speaker B:It's not for the gore of it.
Speaker B:Although there is that, which is fine.
Speaker B:I mean, if you want to do that, that's.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:I think, well, yeah, I mean, I think that's part of the problem of the bias and the prejudice around horror is that they think it's B grade.
Speaker A:Just, just Griff, you know, sort of gratuitous score.
Speaker A:And you know, I just, yeah, I kind of have a problem with that because I think actually horror is extremely grown up genre.
Speaker A:It's the place where we face our fears.
Speaker A:Where, you know, fear is the most primal, our most primal, basest feeling is fear.
Speaker A:What frightens us, what worries us, what gives us, you know, the chills.
Speaker A:And exploring that I think is a universal thing because we all are afraid of something.
Speaker A:Shame, you know, you know, exposure.
Speaker A:We're all afraid of something and it, it drives our behavior.
Speaker A:So I think that actually horror is extremely grown up thing because it allows us to address those fears often couched in metaphor.
Speaker A:You know, monsters are a metaphor for something, for trauma, for, for oppression, for all of these, for tradition, for generational, you know, constraints.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:So addressing those things is actually very brave.
Speaker A:I think, I think if we're, if it comes down, at least for me, I feel it's quite brave because if you're going to be vulnerable and write something that's authentic and which resonates for someone, then yeah, you need to have some bravery to put yourself in the story.
Speaker A:So to me, I think that that notion of, oh, it's, oh, I don't read horror, sorry, it's just gore.
Speaker A:It's just, it's rubbish.
Speaker A:Is it not real?
Speaker A:It's, you know, it's those.
Speaker A:I just think it's very short sighted because actually if it's going to be plausible, you know, you don't just chop off someone's leg for no reason in a story.
Speaker A:There's got to be, we've got to know the psyche of that character and what brought.
Speaker A:Because in their head there's a reason for it.
Speaker A:There's, you know, that they've been, they've been impacted by trauma.
Speaker A:Or some kind of some.
Speaker A:Something that's made them reason that that's the right thing to do.
Speaker A:That's the thing to do.
Speaker A:So, you know, I think, you know, I think.
Speaker A:And there are of course, so many different forms of horror.
Speaker A:You know, you can have that sort of creeping unease, you know, that, oh, there's someone behind me on a dark street.
Speaker A:Oh, that, that unease, you know, that suspense, that threat and all the way up to these sort of, you know, dripping eyeballs.
Speaker A:You know, there's such a, there's such a, you know, a massive sort of spectrum of what represents horror.
Speaker A:So I think, you know, it's doing a disservice to horror to say, oh, it's about murders, you know.
Speaker A:You know, okay, I like a murder story just the same as everyone else, but I think we're addressing those very, very important things and we're trying to couch them in metaphor and in symbol, an imagery often in the supernatural, in order to sort of give them, give us some distance and to hold them up and say, this is how I feel and let's analyze this.
Speaker A:Is there a way out the other side for this character?
Speaker A:You know, if the character hadn't done this, if these, if this environment hadn't been set up, we might survive, you know, so there's often solutions and solace.
Speaker A:So when you're looking at horror, you have an opportunity to say, oh, you know, maybe they get out, there's a hope, you know, and even if it's really bleak, well, if we didn't do that, then maybe there would be hope.
Speaker A:So there's always horror.
Speaker A:Always has this lovely juxtaposition, doesn't it, between all this bleak, horrible outcome, but also this glimmer of hope of we as humans could change this, we could, things could be different.
Speaker A:And I think that's, that's the wonderful thing about horror.
Speaker A:Well, lots, you know, in particular horror.
Speaker A:But I think it's interesting, the prejudice, isn't it?
Speaker A:Because, you know, I often say this.
Speaker A:You know, there's these three genres that we're kind of ashamed to admit we read.
Speaker A:And you know, it's horror, it's humor and it's romance.
Speaker A:You know, they're the things you hide under the bed.
Speaker A:But you know, if it's Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, well, that's okay.
Speaker A:You can, you can be seen to be reading that because it's literature, you know, and I just, I feel, you know, that it's just very, for me, I think that's very short sighted because I think Horror is grown up.
Speaker A:It's important.
Speaker A:It's a really important genre and it's right at the cutting edge of what's frightening us because that's what horror is about.
Speaker A:And so if you're reading horror, you're reading little bit at the edge of where we, where the world's going because that is, you know, the place.
Speaker A:That's the place where our fears are.
Speaker A:So if you're seeing, you know, I think if this is true, I think in the pandemic, I read some research that said, you know, that pandemic movies and pandemic books, so vamp, so mostly sort of zombie movies and that kind of thing.
Speaker A:What were the most read genres and the most watched things because people wanted to understand what was happening and why.
Speaker A:And I mean, if you read zombie horror during that time, you would know that people would break curfews and people would deny the, you know, that there was anything happening.
Speaker A:And people, you know, would go against sort of government edicts and you know, there was all this, you know, so we would have known that you didn't, you could save yourself the think tank because, you know, because, because you know, those things that have already been investigated in pandemic horror.
Speaker A:So zombie horror.
Speaker A:So I think that's interesting.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:People were reading that because, oh my gosh, I want to know, is there some hope?
Speaker A:Can we come through this pandemic?
Speaker A:Are we going to survive?
Speaker A:And it's a safe space to do that in literature or in a movie.
Speaker A:When we're consuming this kind of thing, we're still processing, you know, thinking about these important things.
Speaker A:So yeah, I'm a little bit on a soapbox about horror.
Speaker A:Anti.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I think that's great because I think it horror as a genre gives you like the deepest look into the human psyche of the things that bother us the most, that worry us the most, that we're, we don't want to confront.
Speaker B:And by using horror as a vehicle to explore this, you give people a lens into things that they wouldn't want to experience.
Speaker B:But you can also learn so many valuable lessons on human interaction, you know, society as a whole.
Speaker B:And all these different things that horror explores as a genre that you wouldn't get out of some other things like maybe sci fi or fantasy, although like themes oftentimes like mix and match, you're not strictly one thing or other.
Speaker B:You can obviously move between them fluidly.
Speaker B:I think horror specifically explores those themes very well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:And I think at the moment we're seeing A lot of sort of AI fear based stories that are inspired by, you know, what's going to happen to, you know, the space of society when, when, you know, things are much more automated.
Speaker A:We're seeing a lot of women's rage.
Speaker A:I think that's a big topic now of, you know, women's rights are being eroded.
Speaker A:And so there's a lot of work being done around what does that look like?
Speaker A:What does society look like if you do this to women?
Speaker A:So there's a lot of work in that field, you know, so I think it does reflect kind of society and people's concerns.
Speaker A:And I, you know, so I think it's an important genre.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:I, I just, yeah, I'm very, feel very strongly about it and I think it's doing important work right now in a sort of a world of turmoil.
Speaker A:And for a lot of people, I think writing can be very cathartic.
Speaker A:The act of writing, the act of putting it on the page when you're suffering from anxiety over things that are happening outside that ability, perhaps a little bit beyond your control.
Speaker A:And so sometimes just getting it down and being, bearing witness to what's happening in our world is, you know, you know, we're, we're fishing, overfishing the ocean and we're, you know, chopping down trees and these tensions, you know, people are concerned about them.
Speaker A:So if you get it on the page and you bear witness, sometimes that can be as good as anything.
Speaker A:And maybe you're not writing for anyone else except for yourself in that space, but there's, there's a place for that as well, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah, I did want to talk a little bit about some of your work within community because I think you said you have worked in a lot of anthologies and have had your own.
Speaker B:So can you talk a little bit about that and the importance of having a community of people and sharing stories and all that kind of stuff?
Speaker A:Yeah, so I kind of discovered early on, well, one of the things is I've always wanted to be a writer, but I discovered that it's quite good at editing.
Speaker A:And so I've been, you know, like, I kind of learned by sharing.
Speaker A:So, you know, you know, when you start out, you share a critique with someone and you look at their work and they look at yours and it was just, I learned so much from that.
Speaker A:So I, you know, over time I sort of become a better editor even than I probably am a writer.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:But I also learned very early on that actually that's how you find your tribe.
Speaker A:But Being part of an anthology, you're already part of a group of writers who love the same thing, who are invested in this concept, this idea, the space.
Speaker A:And so anthologies are a wonderful community building space.
Speaker A:You find the readers who are interested in this topic.
Speaker A:So one of my most recent anthology is this one called this Way Lies Madness, which is edited with Dave Jeffrey.
Speaker A:And he is a very, very good writer of horror.
Speaker A:And he writes, and he's also a mental health nurse.
Speaker A:He worked for 35 years in the UK's National Health Service.
Speaker A:So he has this wonderful experience in, you know, the clinical side of mental illness and also is a wonderful horror writer.
Speaker A:So we banded together to work on this project and bring together, you know, other writers who have an interest in writing mental illness in horror.
Speaker A:And often they're bringing themselves and their own experience.
Speaker A:And we were really lucky in this particular book.
Speaker A:Not only did we get these wonderful stories and we, our sort of premise was based on sort of the, the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman and you know, Edgar and Poe's the Tell Tale Heart, which are wonderful stories about paranoia and postnatal depression couched in beautiful writing and metaphor.
Speaker A:And so we had these, we have this bunch of wonderful sort of groundbreaking representative stories which look at mental illness and horror, but in a way that's, that's sensitive, like there's still horror, but they're actually looking at the sort of internal thought of these characters and how they descend into madness and what their thinking is.
Speaker A:But we also have these lovely vignettes from the authors about why they wrote the story and their inspiration for the story, which gives you this wonderful insight into, oh my gosh, I can see why they wrote this story, you know, so that's been really special.
Speaker A:And so, wow, what a community.
Speaker A:And then you find other people reaching out, saying, this work really spoke to me.
Speaker A:I just, I've never read this.
Speaker A:This particular story really spoke to me like I didn't know anyone else felt like this.
Speaker A:And that's the, ah, that's just so wonderful.
Speaker A:And then you have this group of people around you who also, you know, are interested in this very important topic.
Speaker A:And you know, let's talk about this more, let's open a dialogue, let's have some panels on it.
Speaker A:Let's talk about how as writers we can improve our writing in order to speak to this, this, this group and to speak to this topic that's been really, you know, pushed aside.
Speaker A:And, and, and it is also a place where we want to, where, where it's a great Space for horror.
Speaker A:Because horror addresses the uncertainty, the unknown, the things that we don't have control of.
Speaker A:Well, what is that if it isn't mental illness?
Speaker A:You know.
Speaker A:You know, that loss of understanding of self, you know, that's very.
Speaker A:That's terrifying.
Speaker A:You know, I watched my dad devolve into dementia and, oh, so frightening for him, you know, like, to lose that sense of self.
Speaker A:Who do I belong to?
Speaker A:Who are my people?
Speaker A:Who was I?
Speaker A:You know, it's.
Speaker A:It's very, very frightening.
Speaker A:And so I think, you know, have.
Speaker A:Building community around anthology is just a clever, clever way to bring a group together.
Speaker A:Anthology projects are all about community building readerships as well as writing communities.
Speaker A:But that's not the only thing, of course, community work.
Speaker A:I just, I'm built.
Speaker A:I'm part of award systems as a juror, as a convener, as a, you know, as a.
Speaker A:Someone who.
Speaker A:Who has put together, you know, I'm part of the founding group of Te Pai Taffeti, which is an AW that just started for speculative fiction in Aotearoa, New Zealand and the Pacifica Islands.
Speaker A:And so, you know, so I'm very proud of that work.
Speaker A:I've done a lot of work with mentorship of young people writing speculative fiction because kids love speculative.
Speaker A:I mean, that's just the, you know, that's where we start, isn't it?
Speaker A:The three Little Pigs.
Speaker A:You know, pigs don't talk, so that's speculative.
Speaker A:So, you know, like, I love, you know, fairy tales is kind of where we start as children.
Speaker A:And so kids love this.
Speaker A:So I've done a lot of work, years and years of work with young people, you know, exploring speculative fiction and poetry.
Speaker A:And so, yeah, do a lot of community work for writing groups and genre groups and.
Speaker A:Yeah, and I just.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:Find your tribe.
Speaker A:Find the people who, you know, think you're just as weird as them.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And I'm also stuck out on the end of the world.
Speaker A:New Zealand's sort of a little bit isolated.
Speaker A:Not so much now, because here we are, Kevin, talking across, you know, across time zones and across the globe.
Speaker A:But New Zealand is kind of stuck out here, and so, you know, the markets are somewhere else.
Speaker A:New Zealand's a tiny, tiny market.
Speaker A:You know, fiction accounts for 4%, I believe, of all books read in New Zealand, and that also includes children's books, you know, so, yeah, you know, so that's a.
Speaker A:It's a tiny market and the fiction percentage is even tinier.
Speaker A:And then there's kind of Restraints of trade with traditional publishers here, you know, Allen and Unwin or HarperCollins.
Speaker A:New Zealand does not sell New Zealand books into.
Speaker A:Into HarperCollins America.
Speaker A:America can send, you know, New Zealand.
Speaker A:HarperCollins titles into New Zealand, but it doesn't work the other way.
Speaker A:So there's these restraint of trade issues around the big five, the big companies.
Speaker A:So, you know, and pretty much all the big companies are gone from New Zealand.
Speaker A:You know, they're just not here, they're not commissioning here in New Zealand.
Speaker A:So, you know, New Zealand is a bit of a struggle.
Speaker A:We've got a great indie population here.
Speaker A:They're doing incredible, incredible work, getting their work out there.
Speaker A:But yeah, so being in New Zealand is very isolating.
Speaker A:You know, you don't get invited for, you know, to conferences and things.
Speaker A:New Zealand is just too far away, you know.
Speaker A:Oh, it's too far.
Speaker A:It's too expensive.
Speaker A:It's too what, you know, New Zealand brings overseas writers to New Zealand for, For conferences, but it seems like the other way is just too far.
Speaker A:So, you know, it's, it's a, it's a.
Speaker A:It's a tough space to be in.
Speaker A:So, yeah, so that's, that's another.
Speaker A:Another sort of problem, I guess, here and here in New Zealand.
Speaker A:And that's a.
Speaker A:That's kind of a struggle.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, so I, So I think that's why Community is so important to me using all the platforms.
Speaker A:Well, I'm pretty hopeless on Discord Court, I'm gonna say, and Socials, but you want to connect with the people who are, you know, who are passionate about the same things you are in order to, you know, and to find your tribe.
Speaker A:I think that.
Speaker A:That feeling of belonging.
Speaker A:We're all looking for that, aren't we?
Speaker A:We're all looking for a point of connection somewhere we can talk, you know, about things that we.
Speaker A:Concerns that we share, you know, for sure.
Speaker B:So how is it that you and other authors in New Zealand deal with having to do everything essentially indie?
Speaker B:Because the publishers just aren't there.
Speaker B:So what do you do to combat that or try to build yourselves together?
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I think that's me trying to be present in Community, which is very tricky.
Speaker A:I. I tend to be more traditionally published and my.
Speaker A:A lot of my colleagues are indie publishers because they're just to get a foot in the door and then.
Speaker A:Yes, so they're doing very well.
Speaker A:I think they're doing very well.
Speaker A:But I think the option.
Speaker A:That just.
Speaker A:The option's not there.
Speaker A:The problem is there's a Disconnect with our booksellers.
Speaker A:A lot of the time they don't want to publish indie work, they don't want to sell indie work, they don't want to put it on the shelves.
Speaker A:We've got a real dearth of bookstores now in New Zealand and it's mostly stuff from overseas.
Speaker A:It's not New Zealand writers particularly.
Speaker A:Yeah, so there's a sort of a bit of a disconnect, you know, between indie work and getting it in the hands of readers.
Speaker A:So a lot of our indie folks are doing sort of book tours and you know, sort of festivals and markets and those kinds of places to sell their works or sell direct.
Speaker A:And the big platforms.
Speaker A:Well, it's tricky, isn't it?
Speaker A:Because you know, though they have their own process, you know, I mean, obviously there are big platforms that you can use.
Speaker A:So that sort of globalization of the industry has helped in some ways and it's also, also been a detriment, you know, because you're, you're bound by those constraints.
Speaker A:So, you know, go wide, don't go wide.
Speaker A:You know, Kindle Unlimited, you know, all of the platforms.
Speaker A:Are you on godless?
Speaker A:If you're writing horror, what, where are you putting your work?
Speaker A:You know, it's a tricky one.
Speaker A:It's very tricky.
Speaker A:And of course the cost of shipping to New Zealand.
Speaker A:Look, I'm telling you now, a twelve dollar book, $12 US book is going to cost me 17 New Zealand dollars.
Speaker A:So $35 to post to New New Zealand.
Speaker A:You know, like, it's just, even if I get it out of Australia, it's, it's expensive.
Speaker A:The post, it's, it's, it's $10 and another, you know, $40 to post.
Speaker A:So the $10 book, $40 to post.
Speaker A:You know, it's a big.
Speaker A:So often I don't get a contributor copy because it's new.
Speaker A:I'm in New Zealand.
Speaker A:You're too far away.
Speaker A:It's too expensive.
Speaker A:So I often have to buy my own contributor copy of an anthology or a work or you know, if I'm buying works to research, well, often I'll have to buy the ebook because it's just the cost of shipping is too much.
Speaker A:But on the other hand, ebooks, wow.
Speaker A:You know, I can get an ebook.
Speaker A:I can get an instantly.
Speaker A:And so in some ways things are really much better for us and in some ways, you know, they're worse.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But yeah, $10, you know, New Zealand than the $40 shipping.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, it's just one of those.
Speaker B:Things that's hard to combat because obviously it doesn't make sense to send a whole bunch if there's not a market for that because the, the country is so small, the population is not that large.
Speaker B:There's not a whole lot to be gained by sending, you know, a bunch of copies there.
Speaker A:Well actually, you know, that's probably not true.
Speaker A:Kevin Lee Child pretty much started his career by selling works into New Zealand and New Zealand suddenly discovered him kind of thing.
Speaker A:And all of his works now are everywhere, right?
Speaker A:But he basically got his big break from selling works into New Zealand and New Zealand readers went, oh, we like this stuff.
Speaker A:This is so fun and fast paced.
Speaker A:And that was before we had 50 books that were the same.
Speaker A:But, but you know, like, but that's, that's what people, New Zealanders discovered that work so that, you know, it's a small market but it shouldn't be discounted, you know.
Speaker A:And also New Zealanders deserve to see themselves in writing.
Speaker A:They, you know, everyone deserves to see the story.
Speaker A:You know, where were the stories about New Zealand?
Speaker A:And you know, when I was growing up there were no books about little Chinese girls growing up in New Zealand.
Speaker A:There were no books with my story and you know, born there, you know, like there were no books with my story and there's probably still are not very many, you know, you know, if I, if I wanted that to see that book, I have to write it myself, you know, and I think everyone deserves to see themselves in a story in some way.
Speaker A:So I think it's a little bit sad that publishers are discounting New Zealand because I think we could be that breakout market.
Speaker A:And certainly publishers overseas think that because they still do send their overseas work to New Zealand.
Speaker A:It's just, why can't our work go somewhere else?
Speaker A:So it's a tension and I think the indie writers are going, well, hell, I can get my work out there.
Speaker A:I don't need this middleman, this gatekeeper.
Speaker A:And good for them.
Speaker A:And for me the marketing is just massive already.
Speaker A:If you write with a traditional publisher, you still have to do a massive amount of marketing.
Speaker A:But the indie people, not only do they have to do all that marketing and publicity and what have you themselves and understand how to do ads and all the rest, but they also, you know, have to be their own editor or their own, you know, their own formatter.
Speaker A:And that is just a huge amount of work.
Speaker A:And while I've done it, you know, I'm just not that great at it.
Speaker A:So for myself I just tend to prefer to be sort of More traditionally published because I just don't have that breadth of skills.
Speaker A:But go, these indie people in New Zealand are writing top class work and they, they're also doing all those other tasks.
Speaker A:So I mean, they make me exhausted just thinking about it.
Speaker A:But I think that New Zealanders have not, no other option.
Speaker A:A lot of, a lot of people, you know, for example, when I started writing 20 years ago, most of New Zealand publishers had, we don't, we don't accept speculative work, don't send a science fiction and fantasy, you know, or horror, we're not interested.
Speaker A:You know, they actually had that written on their submission.
Speaker A:Submission guidelines.
Speaker A:There are probably three, three literary agents in New Zealand.
Speaker A:So how do you get your work, you know, seen if you.
Speaker A:There are only three agents.
Speaker A:You know, the whole time I've been writing, you could count the number of literary agents in New Zealand on my hand and still have some fingers left over.
Speaker A:So you see, the access is just so difficult and I think New Zealand writers have said, well, you know, I'm just gonna do it and good for them.
Speaker A:So you know, if you can't get a foot in the door, you know, put your foot in the door and jump in.
Speaker A:So for me, I've done it through community.
Speaker A:I've moved into spaces.
Speaker A:I've able to move into spaces where other people are interested in the things that I interested.
Speaker A:And service is a way, you know, service is a way to move into spaces.
Speaker A:You know, my parents taught me this, you know, if you want something to happen, you need to step up and do it.
Speaker A:And so they were always on the pta, the Parent Teachers association, they were always on the church, you know, the church committee or the sports committee, you know, they ran, you know, they were coaching netball and rugby and sailing and you know, they're part of all these things because they wanted to see them happen.
Speaker A:And I learned that very early that, you know, if you want to be part of something, step up.
Speaker A:And you know, people say, well, why should I be a member of this writing group or that writing group?
Speaker A:And I think, well, for me, you know, I want to step up, I want to be part of something.
Speaker A:I believe in horror, so I want to be part of that.
Speaker A:So I join now if I haven't got the time to commit to community work, then I give my money to allow the people the seed funding to do the work that I don't have.
Speaker A:So I can't be everywhere, you know, I've got lots of things I love but so, so, but I do belong to maybe you know, I don't know, 20 writing groups and group genre groups and things because I believe in the work that they're doing and while I'm not on the committee for all of them, you know, where I can't, I think, okay, they're using my membership money to do the work that I don't have time to do because I, you know, and I think that that's the thing.
Speaker A:And I'm a little bit scared, Kevin, because you know, I look around and I think and I'm all the committees and you know, juries and things that I'm on and I think, wow, this is something that older people do, you know, like most of the people I'm working with are in their 40s or 50s or 60s or 70s and where are the Gen X and the Gen Z, the Gen Zs and the younger people?
Speaker A:Because that's sense of that community thing seems to be frittering or they have different fora and they maybe got social media groups or games, night groups or I don't know where that community is coming from.
Speaker A:And maybe that's the thing that's scary is that loss of community.
Speaker A:For me, I found my tribe through community.
Speaker A:How does that work for this new generation of writers and readers coming through?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think it's one of those things where you have to be where they are in order to like introduce them to this idea of community because I, if they're trying to be writers in that sort of way, you need to know what needs to happen.
Speaker A:Yeah, you need to ask how do.
Speaker B:You, how do you make your stuff actually happen?
Speaker B:And if you don't have the guidance of a community or you probably go to YouTube or something.
Speaker B:So maybe YouTube is the space or Tick Tock or what have you wherever.
Speaker A:The places or DeviantArt or you know, or those places.
Speaker A:I don't, I don't know.
Speaker A:And like I'm 60 now, Kevin, so, you know, maybe it's too old and I'm too old and you know, long in the tooth and maybe that's not my target market, but it is the people.
Speaker A:I, you know, I, I, I do a lot of mentorship with young girls, younger writers and I'm loving what I'm seeing and they give me so much hope because you know, they are addressing real, real problems, you know, and there's so much interesting stuff in that sort of trans transgressive sort of space in horror.
Speaker A:So I am very excited about that.
Speaker A:But I also sort of wonder how hard it will be for them to find their community.
Speaker A:And I think that's.
Speaker A:That's the role of anyone who's got a foothold somewhere in literature, in the community, is to pay it forward and lift those new voices up and expand and enrich the genre.
Speaker A:I think that's kind of our role.
Speaker A:Maybe not everyone feels that way.
Speaker A:Maybe they think it's a bit of a competition, but I don't see it that way.
Speaker A:I think that other writers are my friends and I'm happy to move over and give them a space at the table.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, if you find readers who love your stuff or stuff like your stuff, they tend to want to find more of it.
Speaker B:Because you can.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I hope so.
Speaker B:You're always looking for interesting things in perspectives because every single person has a unique and creative view, even if you're telling a very similar story.
Speaker B:We see this a lot in movies where two movies will come out.
Speaker B:They're very similar, you don't know why, and they come out in the same, like, time period as this cultural zeitgeist, or whatever you might call it.
Speaker A:Yes, yes.
Speaker B:Telling this to happen like Armageddon and Deep Impact were two very, very similar movies.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:It's all because we know this is, like, stuff that could happen in the future and we need to be worrying about it.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Totally.
Speaker A:Like, I was involved in a film called Grafted, which is sort of an Asian sort of descent into madness set, New Zealand, you know, monstrous sort of story.
Speaker A:And at the same time, the substance came out.
Speaker A:Massive, big budget, but also looking at sort of the pressure on women to be a certain way and look a certain way, and.
Speaker A:And then also Megan came out, you know, that sort of whole.
Speaker A:So at the same time, these stories came out with, you know, and we, you know, I know our producers were worried that, oh, well, look like work, because that we came out just at the same time and, oh, well, we look like we're copying.
Speaker A:But these works have been in progress for, you know, you know, film takes a while to get to the set.
Speaker A:You know, there'll be a couple of years in progress.
Speaker A:And so obviously, in that sort of primordial soup of thinking, you know, people were concerned about that same thing, you know, that pressure on women to be a certain way.
Speaker A:And I think, you know, we're seeing that now with sort of new drugs available, like Ozempic and Govy or whatever the.
Speaker A:Whatever the preparation is, and sort of that pressure on women to look a certain way in the community.
Speaker A:It's, again, I thought we dealt with this, but we're back there, you know, and so that I'm sure we're going to see another sort of.
Speaker A:Another sort of round of that kind of investigation in writing.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker A:I think that we don't.
Speaker A:We're not sitting in a.
Speaker A:In a vacuum.
Speaker A:You know, writing reflects our society and the things that are happening in our society in some way.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:That people will come up with similar ideas, but maybe approach it a little differently each time.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And there's space for it, you know, there's space for it, for sure.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Because every additional detail that comes from your experience or from your point of view, even if it's not experience like we discussed earlier, the more rich and expansive your ideas become.
Speaker B:Because then you have, oh, I can look here or I can look here.
Speaker B:It's not just one place or the other.
Speaker B:You get this, like, unique take on any given, you know, idea.
Speaker A:Totally, totally.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:I have a few more questions left.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Any other authors who stand out to you in your circles?
Speaker A:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So this is not a fair question to ask of any writer because that, because I am a product of all of the things, you know, all of these wonderful writers that support and promote me and help me and, you know, and my crit group, you know, who read my work and give me support.
Speaker A:But I want to shout out to all the people that I have collaborated with because I'm a very collaborative writer.
Speaker A:So I've written, for example, a whole series of novels with my colleague Dan Raibarts from New Zealand, who is an incredible Mori writer.
Speaker A:So we've written some sort of.
Speaker A:Of supernatural crime noir novels together series and just love working with him.
Speaker A:And he's an incredible writer in his own right, particularly, particularly good in short story.
Speaker A:He's a real short story specialist.
Speaker A:And so again, he's stuck out here in New Zealand too, but has this really unique voice.
Speaker A:So I love his work.
Speaker A:I love Dave Jeffrey's work.
Speaker A:I mentioned him before with this Way Lies Madness, who writes in that sort of mental health and horror space.
Speaker A:But he writes, you know, monster stories and YA stories and so incredibly versatile writer as well.
Speaker A:I want to talk about Angela Eureko Smith, Genevieve Flynn, Christina Singh.
Speaker A:They're collaborators I've worked with in the sort of Asian women in horror space.
Speaker A:I've written poetry works with them, women's essays on horror and their Asian diaspora experience.
Speaker A:And also Black Cranes, which was short stories.
Speaker A:So I've worked very, you know, extensively with Those women, Angela again.
Speaker A:I collaborated with her on a sort of craft book.
Speaker A:Yeah, just Piper Mejia, who's one of my crit group writers.
Speaker A:I wrote a novel with her, a novella, which for young people, sort of a retelling of the wizard of Oz.
Speaker A:My latest book is Oversight Erasure Poetry, which I've written with acclaimed US poet Karina Bissett.
Speaker A:And love working with her.
Speaker A:Incredible poet.
Speaker A:She's very.
Speaker A:She writes horror, but she also writes fabulism.
Speaker A:And she's really very embedded in this sort of horror, fairy tale type writing, beautiful prose writing as well.
Speaker A:You know, I just am very lucky to have worked with some of the most, you know, amazing writers.
Speaker A:Like I've done other, other collaborative works, but those ones just jumped to mind because they have just inspired me.
Speaker A:I've worked closely with them and they've brought their A game.
Speaker A:You know, they've always, you know, the things we do together are always better than the things I do myself because you have the synergy of other skills and ideas.
Speaker A:So I'm very lucky.
Speaker A:I'm careful about who I collaborate with because they're tricky.
Speaker A:They're tricky.
Speaker A:Collaborations are tricky.
Speaker A:But I've been so lucky to have worked with the most talented, generous, incredible writers.
Speaker A:So those are the people I want to shout out.
Speaker A:And I guess I'd like to also shout out to all the people who've mentored me.
Speaker A:Early on, you know, I worked with a New Zealand writer called Graham Lay, who just has been.
Speaker A:Who was a wonderful inspiration, helped me with the early craft and also was just a great advisor, you know, when I was starting my career, I just kind of contact him and, you know, mentorship is forever.
Speaker A:That's the thing.
Speaker A:If you take on as a mentor, I still have mentees coming back to me 10 and 15 years later, you know, oh, this is where I'm at.
Speaker A:You know, I'm doing this.
Speaker A:What do you think?
Speaker A:And it's, it's wonderful, wonderful to have the privilege of working in people, you know, working with people like that.
Speaker A:But also my own mentors have been wonderful in that respect, you know, and have given me so much insight into the industry.
Speaker A:It changes so quickly.
Speaker A:But they were, they've been wonderful rocks for me.
Speaker A:Where do you think I should go with this?
Speaker A:You know, not even just in the craft of writing, but what do I do next?
Speaker A:Who do I speak to?
Speaker A:How do I get?
Speaker A:What's, what's the right approach?
Speaker A:What did you do?
Speaker A:You know, sometimes it's just helpful to bounce those ideas around.
Speaker A:And so having mentorship you know, is just.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So important part of community building and all those sorts of things.
Speaker A:And now I've lost this, I've lost the question.
Speaker B:You shouted out so much people, so many people.
Speaker B:And it's always good to have know, as many interesting, fun, you know, experimental, all these people who are trying to do the same sort of thing as you.
Speaker B:And it's not competition, like we've said, it's really building community and, you know, lifting each other up versus, you know, oh, I, I don't want them to sell their books because whatever, whatever reason we might have in our mind that says that they shouldn't.
Speaker B:So I love.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:And Jonathan Mabry has this really good 10 point list of things that you should do as a writer.
Speaker A:And the first one is don't be a dick.
Speaker A:And the second one is don't be a dick.
Speaker A:And the third one is don't be a dick.
Speaker A:And I think that that's just true.
Speaker A:If you don't like someone's writing, well, that's no big deal.
Speaker A:There's plenty of other writers out there and you don't need to pull them down so they'll find their space and if they need to still, there's still work to do on their craft, they will find that, you know, they will get there.
Speaker A:None of us start out as great writers.
Speaker A:You know, we always, you know, we write our first book and it's a practice book and you know, and we write our second book, it might be a little better, and we write the third book and you know, by the time you get to book 20, you might be starting to find your place.
Speaker A:And you know, I think, I think, you know, I think that you just.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That whole don't be a dick is a really, really a really good rule of thumb for writers.
Speaker A:You don't, we don't need to, we don't need the negativity.
Speaker A:There's a space for everybody.
Speaker A:I just think.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we're all on our journey and not all of us are, you know, in the same place yet.
Speaker A:And you know, I'm expect, I want my mentees to do better than me, way better than me.
Speaker A:A lot of them are, you know, I just, you know, I don't, I don't, I'm not precious about that.
Speaker A:I think that, you know, there's a place for all of us.
Speaker A:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The more that you lift other people up, the better it makes you look.
Speaker B:First of all.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, you always want people to, especially as a Mentor, like, surpass you.
Speaker B:That's always the goal, I think, of a mentor is to hopefully have the student overtake the master.
Speaker B:And that's just like.
Speaker B:If you're raising kids right, it's the same.
Speaker A:Yeah, you've done your job.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:You've done your job.
Speaker A:If they've got that, you know, you've done, you've.
Speaker A:Yay.
Speaker A:Yo, yo.
Speaker A:You've.
Speaker A:Because if they succeed, then you've succeeded, you know, you've done a great job.
Speaker A:And I just.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:And you've built the genre, and you've built, you know, you've helped someone step up on the career and build the community.
Speaker A:Yeah, I just.
Speaker A:I completely believe that, Kevin.
Speaker A:Completely.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker B:What message do you want people to get out of your books?
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm not writing to be didactic.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:I don't want to club them over the head with it.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:I think readers.
Speaker A:I think I write a story that I hope will.
Speaker A:Well, it resonates for me.
Speaker A:It's trying to sort of get something on the page and bear witness to something that I think is important.
Speaker A:And that means that then I hope that they will be touched in some way, that they will see something, that they recognize themselves, that they will feel not alone.
Speaker A:I think that's the thing, is that, you know, do they see themselves in my writing?
Speaker A:Is that.
Speaker A:Is there a little girl out there, you know, a New Zealand, little Chinese girl who's looking for something and sees my work and goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I see myself there.
Speaker A:Yay.
Speaker A:You know?
Speaker A:You know, that I think that.
Speaker A:That I'm looking.
Speaker A:I'm hoping that they'll see a point of connection.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:That scares me, too.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:You know, I have that.
Speaker A:I know what anxiety is like, you know, I know that sort of feeling of, you know, not wanting to go out of the house and having to snuggle under the blankets because, you know, I just.
Speaker A:I can't go anywhere today.
Speaker A:You know, I know that feeling.
Speaker A:And so I hope that's what they get, that feeling that I'm not alone in this, that someone else sees me and sees my experience and understands that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so I'm not probably for everyone, and I.
Speaker A:But I just hope that there are people out there who feel that connection.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think that's what I'm hoping they'll get from the reading.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker B:And what advice would you give to somebody who wants to stand out as an author?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So I think you should write what you know, I mean, put Yourself in the story.
Speaker A:You should write the best book that you can write the very best book.
Speaker A:You know, bring all those craft skills, things to bear.
Speaker A:You know, do all the workshops.
Speaker A:Write the best book.
Speaker A:Put yourself in the story.
Speaker A:Have fun with it.
Speaker A:Be brave, be kind.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Find your tribe.
Speaker A:I think those are kind of the things.
Speaker A:All the rest of the stuff, it's changing every day.
Speaker A:So don't.
Speaker A:Don't listen to me, you know, but those things I think are core and fundamental, you know, pay it forward.
Speaker A:All of those things.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So those would be the things I would say.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Universal things that aren't affected by technology.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like the humanness.
Speaker A:Yeah, the humanness of writing.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And do you have a challenge that you want to give to anybody who is listening to this on how to stand up?
Speaker A:A challenge?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:To stand out.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think for me.
Speaker A:I think for me, going to conferences has been.
Speaker A:Each time I've, you know, the first time I went to a conference in New Zealand, a genre conference, I thought, there are these other people that think like me, and I was really lucky because they were very welcoming.
Speaker A:I think it's hard.
Speaker A:I think that the challenge would be to turn up to a conference even if you know no one, And just try and just try and be part of the conversation, offer yourself up to be on a panel or, you know, to ask people about their work, to read other writers, to sort of step in.
Speaker A:And if.
Speaker A:And I think, yeah, service is the thing.
Speaker A:I think that that's it.
Speaker A:So turn up to a conference, Meet your community if you can.
Speaker A:And if you can't, step in and meet your community in another way.
Speaker A:So through service, I think.
Speaker A:And, you know, yeah, I think that's.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think that's probably the way.
Speaker A:How do you stand out?
Speaker A:I just don't know.
Speaker A:I just don't know.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:Everyone's got a different definition.
Speaker B:I think it's up to you to decide what would be.
Speaker A:Kevin.
Speaker A:I think the point is the definition of success is a different thing.
Speaker A:So for me, what's a definition of success is that, you know, I found a community that I love, and I found a genre that I love to write in and maybe a little readership.
Speaker A:And I'm not wealthy, so I, you know, I have.
Speaker A:I'm not making millions.
Speaker A:I'm barely making grocery money, you know, so, you know, am I successful?
Speaker A:A lot of people say, hell no, but for me, that's.
Speaker A:That's working for me.
Speaker A:So, you know, I mean, what's successful?
Speaker A:I Mean, I think that's, I think that's the thing.
Speaker A:I think once you've defined what, what is successful to you, what would successful look like, then you can step forward and say, how am I going to get there?
Speaker A:And if successful means building a best selling community or then that means you need to take a different path from me because that's not me.
Speaker A:But I think that that's perhaps the thing to think about each year as you go into, you know, start your writing year is what do I want from this?
Speaker A:You know, where do I want to go?
Speaker A:You know, I like to write all over the place.
Speaker A:I like to challenge myself and write, you know, in terms of my writing practice and you know, I'm just never gonna, I don't stand still in one place.
Speaker A:I never, I'm not going to write the same book or the same genre or the same style of book or I'm not going to write 29 books in one series because I know that I can't stay fresh.
Speaker A:And so if, but if you want to write, you know, if that's your goal is to have 20 books in a series and you know, have this really great best selling series, go for it then, you know, I think that we're all a little different and we all want different things and so saying to people, how do you stand out?
Speaker A:Well, I think it's different for different people and I think we need to find our own space there.
Speaker A:And so what I suggest you do is not going to be what someone else would suggest you do and because what's right for me is going to be right for it, not necessarily right for a different person.
Speaker A:I'm just saying, you know, community has worked for me.
Speaker A:Turning up has, has, you know, coming meeting my people has, has worked for me and networking and.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I mean that.
Speaker B:I think that's beautiful because everyone has their own goals and things that they want to do so you can listen to whoever makes the most sense for you.
Speaker B:So that doesn't necessarily mean you have to follow Lee's advice, but you can follow this person's advice.
Speaker B:So it's all about who you are, what you want and what like you said, the definition success is for you.
Speaker B:Well, Lee, this has been amazing talking to you.
Speaker B:I feel like we could go on forever, but I think we could.
Speaker B:Where can people find you online and keep up?
Speaker A:Yeah, leighmarry.info you can find me on my website, right?
Speaker A:Yeah, that's.
Speaker A:I have a newsletter, but I think I've sent one this year.
Speaker A:I very.
Speaker A:I think I sent two last year.
Speaker A:So, you know, it's not spammy.
Speaker A:You can, you can connect in and you can, you can cut.
Speaker A:People can contact me via my website.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So, and, and all my works are there and there's some freebies if you sign up.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's Lee with L, e E. Lee murray.info.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That should find me.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker B:Well, thank you for coming on.
Speaker B:It's been a pleasure talking.
Speaker A:It's been wonderful to meet you too, Kevin.
Speaker A:Thank you for having me and appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.
Speaker B:Thanks for joining us.
Speaker B:If you're an author thinking about voice visibility or how to show up without losing yourself, you can learn more@outout authors.com to listen to past episodes of Standout Authors Unbound, head to standout authors.com unbound.
Speaker B:If you know someone whose story deserves more room, share this episode with them.
Speaker B:And if you want to keep the conversation going, you can find me on Instagram andoutcreativebusiness.
Speaker B:Until next time, keep writing, everyone.
